Friday, December 07, 2007

Mitt Romney's Step of Faith

Cranmer is rather impressed by the analysis of Joe Loconte on Mitt Romney’s supremely balletic handling of his adherence to the cult of Mormonism, which is worthy of wider dissemination and deeper consideration:

“WASHINGTON, DC — Skeptics at home and abroad are carping about Mitt Romney’s first major speech on religion. They should stop huffing and hyperventilating long enough to actually read it—a text that ranks as the most sober, sane, and historically informed view of religion and American democracy delivered thus far in the presidential campaign.

“Many have tried to coax Mr. Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, to explain and defend his Mormon beliefs. Yesterday he declined the invitation. “To do so would enable the very religious test the Founders prohibited in the Constitution,” he said. “No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”

“That welcome answer—the American solution to the question of religion and government—goes to heart of the American Creed. The driving aim of the separation of church and state is not to quarantine religion from public life, but to protect religious liberty for people of all faiths, or of no faith. Mr. Romney’s answer is anchored in the concepts of equality and the inalienable rights of conscience. It is established by the original text of the Constitution, in Article VI (“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust”) and by the lead-off amendment to that text, the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”).

"Mr. Romney’s answer is also long overdue. For years now most conservatives have kept their mouths shut as politicians or presidential advisors have played the religion card for Christian audiences—a disgraceful game I’ve witnessed up close. It has inflicted untold damage to the public understanding of America’s democratic heritage. In the recent YouTube campaign debate, for example, the Republican candidates were asked if they viewed the Bible as the word of God. Predictably, and pathetically, none of them appealed to this bedrock political doctrine: no religious test for public office.

“Mr. Romney did find it necessary to share one of his theological convictions: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the savior of mankind.” Given the ambiguities of Mormonism on this issue, it would be better left unsaid. Nevertheless, his speech could begin to change the overall conversation. In a manner that secular voices here and in Europe find baffling, he spoke warmly of America’s religious diversity:

“And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.”

“Unlike John Kennedy’s religion speech in which he crudely disavowed any link between his Catholic faith and his politics, Mr. Romney affirmed the important work of religion in supporting democratic ideals and inspiring political reform. “Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself,” he said, “no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.”

“The candidate could be faulted for not explicitly affirming the welcome role that non-believers play in American public life. Yet only the dour atheism of critics such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens could doubt the self-evident truth of his basic argument. Indeed, today’s “movements of conscience”—on issues such as genocide in Sudan, human trafficking, global AIDS—are likewise driven by religious believers. Mr. Romney is right, and wise, to contrast this vision of faith and society with the derisive, dreary, and demoralized alternative touted by many liberals and the militant secular left.

“Mr. Romney closed his speech by contrasting the strength and decency of America’s political culture to that of two competing alternatives. One is the vision of violent jihad, “the creed of conversion by conquest” and “murder as martyrdom”—what he calls one of the greatest dangers faced by civilized nations. There can be little doubt that Islamic theocratic states are breeding grounds for this brand of extremism.

“The other choice is the path taken by much of Europe, the roadway into doubt and indifference about God and the deep questions of human existence. The magnificent cathedrals of Europe, Mr. Romney said, do not disguise the fact that they serve as “the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too ‘enlightened’ to venture inside and kneel in prayer.” Such criticism will sting our European friends, and need not have been made. But Mr. Romney is surely right to blame the establishment of state religions—and the coercion and corruption they instigate—as a chief cause of religion’s decline and rejection in Europe.

“It is, in fact, a judgment that one of Europe’s greatest political minds likely would applaud. “Truth…is not taught by laws, nor has she any need of force to procure her entrance into the minds of men,” wrote John Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration. “But if truth makes not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be but the weaker for any borrowed force that violence can add to her.”

The light of religious truth, to put it gently, does not always and everywhere burn brightly in these United States. Mr. Romney’s speech, however, may make certain truths a little less obscure as this presidential campaign continues.

An aged priest friend of mine, some years ago, said he had been listening to "Thought for the Day" that morning. It had already started when he began to listen. Instead of the usual modish stuff from the Bishop of Oxford etc it was really sound. He thought, "What a welcome change! Who is this chap?" The speaker finished, "And now to Ganesh, the elephant god ..."

“Mr. Romney did find it necessary to share one of his theological convictions: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the savior of mankind.” Given the ambiguities of Mormonism on this issue, it would be better left unsaid."

What ambiguities are they Your Grace?

Have you ever noted the similarities between joseph Smith and Mohammed?

Doesn't the Republican Party owe Americans a clear choice--a Huckabee-Romney or Romney-Huckabee ticket--that would, in effect, be a referendum on the separation of church and state?

The alternative is to keep allowing the Religious Right to keep dominating the American conversation far out of proportion to be their true numbers and in contradiction to a consensus that existed in the nation's politics since 1776 until Islamic terrorists gave Bush's Christian absolutists a climate of fear in which to propagate their own extremism.

As the 2008 elections are upon us, many people are discussing the various candidates' records and statements. I encourage you all to be informed voters about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney by visiting the following site:

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

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The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)